The Vessel in NYC’s Hudson Yards reopens with safety netting 3 years after spate of suicides. But is it any better?

(CNN) — The massive honeycomb structure known as the Vessel in New York City’s Hudson Yards reopened Monday with newly installed safety netting more than three years after a spate of suicides led to its ignominious closure.

The reopening represents a fresh attempt to establish the climbable, 150-foot-tall structure as the Instagrammable centerpiece of Hudson Yards, the largest development in Manhattan since Rockefeller Center. The addition of safety netting, though, is a recognition that the structure opened in March 2019 with major flaws and that early warnings about its low barriers and lack of netting were ignored.

“We were able to figure out a solution that I think balances all the aesthetic concerns of making sure people can see and also provide that safety to all of the customers coming in,” Hudson Yards COO Andrew Rosen said, according to CNN affiliate WABC.

Heatherwick Studio, which designed the Vessel, said it was “pleased” the structure is reopening.

“We hope that it will continue to deliver the experience we originally envisioned – as a unique place for exploration and a one-of-a-kind take on the city of New York,” a spokesperson for the studio said in an email.

Two architecture critics told CNN the netting appears to address functional safety concerns about people jumping. But they say the Vessel remains gaudy and ungainly.

“It adds gracelessness to what already was a kind of graceless and off-putting structure,” said Jacob Alspector, the principle of Alspector Architecture and associate professor at the Spitzer School of Architecture. “I think they’re going to get their draw, get people who pay money to go up and look at it, but I don’t think it’s an improvement at all. It actually goes the opposite way.”

Matt Shaw, an architecture critic who edited the prescient 2016 story in The Architect’s Newspaper warning about the Vessel’s safety issues, told CNN this project was ill-planned from the start.

“(Vessel) is permanently now a reminder of, A, the ridiculous way this thing was conceived and B, that people died here,” he said.

Netting is ‘bespoke’ solution, architecture firm says

The gleaming, copper-colored tourist attraction – owned by Related Companies, the real estate firm run by billionaire Stephen M. Ross – is made up of a series of staircases and offers 360-degree views of the area.

Early critics warned the structure’s low railings and lack of netting would allow for suicide attempts. Those warnings proved tragically accurate.

After three suicides, the Vessel closed for several months in January 2021 and reopened with new safety measures, including increased security, a buddy system and signs about mental health resources. But after the suicide of a 14-year-old in July 2021, the Vessel’s staircases were closed for over three years.

Heatherwick Studio said it looked for a design solution that would have an appropriate level of safety but wouldn’t compromise the shape and experience of the Vessel. The studio designed the “bespoke” solution, part of a wider set of safety measures.

CNN, located at Hudson Yards, took a trip to the Vessel on Wednesday to explore the changes. The honeycomb structure sits in the center of the block, surrounded by a high-end mall to the east, the moveable arts center The Shed to the south, a train yard and the Hudson River to the west, and a small park and rooftop Equinox pool to the north.

The Vessel has a $10 entrance fee, and after the requisite ticket and security check, we entered the ground floor of the structure to look up at a lattice of staircases and shiny brass. About five employees were stationed around the structure to watch over the crowd of mostly tourists snapping photos and trudging their way higher.

At the third level, netting blocked off the outside of the structure, and at the fourth level, the netting blocked the inside. Parts of the Vessel were inaccessible due to newly installed gates and netting, and the accessible area narrowed the higher we climbed. By the seventh level (out of eight total), visitors can only access a single platform on the south side, with a slightly obstructed view of the Manhattan cityscape. The top level is off limits.

Walking up the Vessel is an unsettling experience: Cold and maze-like yet thrilling and tense. After a hike up and down its 154 flights of stairs, our legs wobbled slightly and our hearts beat in our chests.

Alspector has previously criticized the Vessel as an “MC Escher nightmare,” referring to the famed graphic artist known for his staircases to nowhere. He has not visited the Vessel since its reopening but said photos and videos of the netting make it look “like a cage, like a prison.”

He noted the hexagonal shape of the netting bears resemblance to the shape of the stairways. Still, it looks like netting, and its presence may cause visitors to wonder why it’s there in the first place.

“It’s definitely bespoke, but it doesn’t transform the space or the structure into something positive,” Alspector said.

For Shaw, the netting does not address the fundamental issue with the Vessel – the structure serves no real purpose, he says. Balancing aesthetic ambition and functional utility is a common tension in urban design. He said the honeycomb structure with endless steps leading nowhere falls short on both counts.

The root of the problem can be traced to the creation process, he said. The structure’s design, he said, was agreed upon behind closed doors, lacking the type of community feedback that makes public spaces better.

“It’s out of touch with what people really need,” Shaw said. “This thing really is a monument to a guy who has too much money, and they just got it wrong.”

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